


Valhalla Lost

by Jadedphase



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 06:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4909357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadedphase/pseuds/Jadedphase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleeping there in that old bunk with the ghost of roads left behind and friends lost seemed right, tangled up in thin blankets and fighting nightmares with the fevers and chills; Nux felt like he was still the War Boy he had battled so hard to become. </p><p>AU for the fact that Nux survived the crash of the War Rig.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valhalla Lost

Sometimes Nux wished he understood more or didn't understand as much as he did; either way it would have made some things in life easier in ways that they used to be back in the days when Joe was still a towering god and not just another pile of bones picked clean in the desert sands. As bad as it had been for most of his life, all of it he could recall, it hadn't seemed so terrible when all he really needed to focus on was being the strongest driver, the fastest behind the wheel and always striving to gain the favor of those who ruled his tiny world. Bloodshed and sacrifice had been a part of life, the best part of it when it had meant something, had meant glory and the only sort of immortality that someone like himself could ever hope to grasp in their eager hands. It had been wrong, he understood that finally, but it had felt like purpose back then and had been a reason to struggle through the nights of fever and the days of pain.  
When the most a person could hope for was an end to an exhausting life in a way that would make them be remembered forever, well; at least it was still hope. 

The hope he knew now was for a future that he could barely understand and would not be present for. 

Water flowed freely and food grew out of the ashes of that old world, violence was not the greatest power and people had worth past what their status in the eyes of Joe happened to be; for all of that Nux should have been happy. And he was, he was happy for the pups now and the ones to come who would grow up without knowing how life used to be; they would be given a world that was still difficult but so such more shiny than the one he had grown up in himself.  
The sting though came in also knowing what else would be lost. 

It had begun to nag at him as the nights started to turn difficult, the aches more resounding and his body could no longer keep up with his energetic mind. It was easy to smile and chatter away the daylight hours but the evenings had become a burden; one spent alone in a bunk he used to share with his best friend and could not stand the thought of abandoning even though the Mothers had offered time and time again to find him somewhere more comfortable than that chunk of rough carved stone to sleep.  
The memories would not allow him to leave; his entire life as a War Boy had been connected to the cars and the tools, and the bunk Slit had always complained about being too small even though he barely took up any room in it himself, the V8 and a culture more complicated than any outsiders could honestly understand but were swift to condemn. 

It was confusing, so deeply troubling and perplexing, that his entire life of clawing, desperate determination to earn the praise of his earthly god was now deemed too wrong, too violent; he was the one deemed the feral animal in the eyes of those who ruled over that world now. Every drop of blood shed had been in earnest, every snarling lunge and vicious attack that had taken him step by tiny step higher up the ranks, every single move that had led him to finally having that beloved steering wheel within his grasp was only a reflection of what had no place now. That much had been taken from him; having a new greater role in it all, or so Capable had told him, did not entirely ease the sting of feeling as though so much of himself had been thrown into a position of importance that actually amounted to nothing. Nux didn't hold malice towards the Wives for that; they were too good and kind to ever really be angry at and they treated him with the sort of compassion that had always been so rare, but it left him wondering if he was just another shadow of the life they were trying to wash clean away. And all the death, all his friends now lost; would they be remembered as just weak-willed slaves to Joe's madness rather than the true and pure warriors they had proven themselves to be?

The pain of that question; it hurt in a spot deep inside his chest that Nux could not identify but left the most resounding twinge of throbbing agony. It made him feel rusty and hollow, like a car with no fuel left to burn and no parts of any use to salvage; bound to be abandoned in the sands and forgotten even if they others had assured him that he had done such good things in helping them steal away the power from Joe.

Nux had helped to kill his own god and the nightmares that laced his dreams with were more terrifying than he wanted to admit.

Sleeping there in that old bunk with the ghost of roads left behind and friends lost seemed right, tangled up in thin blankets and fighting nightmares with the fevers and chills; Nux felt like he was still the War Boy he had battled so hard to become. 

Not anything to complain about when the Organic couldn't help him and the Mothers couldn't save him with their strange growing green things, Nux plastered his old smile in place when he spoke to them and hurried around to be helpful, to work on rebuilding the world that was slipping through his own fingers. He felt some strength in those hopes, he just wished it was enough strength to keep his chest from aching by the time he stumbled off to bed late in the evening hours. 

But it was better, he had already decided, that he would die soon; in days or weeks or however long it took, because the slow realization had come over him that this world they were building was not one he could be a part of. 

It would be a place with little need for War Boys, for drivers and lancers, for displays of competitive determination and wild risk that kept his heart pumping strong; a place where the dead did not throw themselves into the cause but rather died soft since that was how people were supposedly meant to die. And most alarming of all; a world without Valhalla.  
Too much for Nux to even fathom; the possibility that the friends he had lost would not be waiting for him on the other side of the shiny gates, that Slit would not be expecting him with his usual sarcastic smirk and mocking commentary over how long it had taken him to get there. No one to Witness him, no need to hunt for glory; only nothingness. 

And that terrified Nux so badly, all the way down to his core; he did not want to go to the darkness forever and did not want to think that everyone he had known before was already there so far beyond any reach. 

Larry and Barry would get the best of him, Nux could feel it more than ever and knew somewhere in the back of his mind that his days were coming closer and closer to an end; Capable reassured him that they would find the correct medicine for him and Max had gone to Barter Town weeks ago to search there but some part of him almost wished they both failed. And he was not alone in that want, half-lives were short and that was the natural course of things but half-lives that did not end with the chance at something better was the cruelest sort of joke.  
Joe may have been an evil man but he offered some sort of end that was shiny and Chrome compared to the rusty life they all had to suffer. 

He thought too much, Nux decided while he lay in that bunk that was so much colder when there was only an empty person-shaped space at his side, let the ideas get the best of him; there was far too much time to think instead of thrive on the reckless joy of action that had made life easier before. On the surface all the change seemed to be for the best but it would also become a place where brave warriors like Slit would be forgotten and their stories never told, where people like himself raised on battle and fierce drive lost most of their purpose, somewhere too soft to need the promise of the gates opening. 

It would be a very shiny world, Nux was certain that the Wives and Max would see to that, but some nights he wished he hadn't been pulled from Valhalla's welcome and brought into a place that no longer felt like the home he used to know. And if he was fated to die regardless Nux hoped Slit was crafty, and not still too angry; that he would find a way to hold the gates open for him.

It would be soon enough so that maybe, just maybe, he would still have time to sneak into those gates before they closed forever and the time of War Boys and Valhalla faded away somewhere between the burning sun and the cracked pavement of haunted roads.


End file.
